Description
Edited by Katerina Atanassova, Wahsontiio Cross, and Anabelle Kienle Ponka. Wahsontiio Cross is Kanien'kehá:ka from Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory, Quebec and Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization, at the National Gallery of Canada. Katerina Atanassova is Senior Curator, Canadian Art, at the National Gallery of Canada and Anabelle Kienle Ponka is Senior Curator, European, American, and Asian Art, at the National Gallery of Canada.
Winter Count draws inspiration from the Plains First Nations practices of recording significant events each winter, a visual reminder that helps structure histories and traditions passed down to future generations. This volume describes how winter has long shaped Indigenous, Canadian settler, and northern European art, uniting different cultural perspectives through such diverse topics as storytelling, effects of light, physical adaptation, and community and isolation.
Presenting a selection of works spanning from the early 19th century to the present day — including artists such as Kenojuak Ashevak, J.E.H. MacDonald, Claude Monet, Kent Monkman, Megan Musseau, and Jin-me Yoon — Winter Count features approximately 170 plates, along with illustrated essays by curators from the National Gallery of Canada. The result is a book that invites readers to see winter anew — not as a season to be endured, but as a source of invention, connection, and mutual respect across time and place.